That instant, a wild wind howled past.
The hand that hung high in the sky slowly lifted, aiming far off at the brightly lit Xinhai City, its fingers slowly closing.
As if it had grasped something invisible.
It pulled with all its might!
A sharp shriek burst from the void, like the sound of countless pieces of glass being scraped together, overlapping into an insane clamor that spread.
Heaven and earth shook.
As if dislodging the wedges that secured the heavens and the vast earth.
In that instant, a white shadow fell beneath a streetlight in the suburbs of Xinhai.
"Finally, I made it!"
The pigeon slowly retracted its wings, landing on the teenage girl's slender arm.
Like she had just finished a marathon, she was sweating profusely, her tight sports T-shirt and running pants soaked through, clinging to her fine figure.
Unfortunately, no one was fortunate enough to witness it.
She gasped for breath, looking at the hand floating dozens of kilometers away, and shook her head helplessly.
Under the illumination of the streetlight, her shadow seemed to come to life, slowly raising its hands, as if drawing unseen weapons—two of them.
She slashed forward.
And then, silence descended.
For a moment, the distant roar, the chirping of insects, the falling dust, the flowing wind, the surging river, the rising fire, and the solid earth all came to a halt.
As if frozen by an invisible force.
The next instant, a trace so faint it was difficult to distinguish extended from beneath her feet, stretching out straight ahead for twenty-three kilometers and four hundred eleven meters.
Destruction, precise to the millimeter, arrived.
Neatly, the hand split apart right through the center, falling away in halves; then, it was 'sliced' at the waist, turning into four pieces.
The four pieces, before scattering, crumbled into eight.
One, two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred twenty-eight, two hundred fifty-six… a cruel and precise geometric progression continued to the limits of human observation.
In the end, the shattered Source Substance exploded with a bang.
It turned into a fire that consumed everything.
Everything, up to this point, before this indescribable sword strike, came to an end.
It was over.
"I hope there won't be too many victims," she sighed sadly, then heard her phone ringing in her pocket.
"Hello? I'll be right there! I just got lost, really lost... Your airdrop is definitely problematic! I'll arrive in five minutes, just five... Ah, I'm on my way..."
The pigeon and the teenage girl both vanished.
「. . .」
"Heaven Earth Power·Divine Power at Will..."
As the hand of the Wind Disaster Beast shattered, Red Gloves' face turned ashen. Through gritted teeth, he hissed,
"—White Emperor's Son!"
SNAP!
A cracking sound suddenly emanated from his face.
The fractures spread, and in an instant, as if countless wild blades were hacking at him, half his body turned into a bloody mess. Invisible swords continued to relentlessly tear at his shell until the pendant around his neck let out a mournful cry—a little doll with a blank face crumbled into dust.
The blank-faced doll had taken his place, enduring the after-aftermath of the White Emperor's Son's sword strike.
Yet even the faintest wisp of 'radiation' that still reached Red Gloves was agonizing.
Even his Soul Incarnate, the Sneering Fish Tank, showed a grievous crack, one of the two fish fry inside already belly-up.
The other was also floundering at death's door, clearly not long for this world.
"Damn these monsters..."
Red Gloves suddenly bent over, spitting out a mouthful of blood. He heard heavy footsteps in the distance—the army was already moving. A vicious gleam shot through his eyes as he pulled out the detonator and slammed it down.
The countdown started on the plastic explosives set around the church, ensuring that the last traces would be completely cleared in fifteen seconds.
Failing doesn't matter, as long as the Rebirth Cauldron is still here...
He turned and reached towards the pulpit, but his hand and his malevolent grin both froze—the pulpit was bare!
Gone!
The Rebirth Cauldron was gone!
The box had disappeared without a trace at some unknown time!
He furiously overturned the pulpit but found nothing. He let out two hoarse roars and, with footsteps rapidly approaching, frantically dismantled the entire pulpit, still finding nothing.
When the surviving doors of the church were smashed open and the Suppression Troops burst in, they only saw a man standing on the platform, his eyes as red as a mad dog's.
He spat disdainfully and flipped off the soldiers. "Eat shit, you walking corpses of the Astronomical Society!"
He threw out a playing card.
The card folded in midair, dragging his body along. Then, as the card folded again and again, in the blink of an eye, he became an insignificant dot, sucked into an abyssal hole, vanishing from sight.
The next moment, a destructive blaze swallowed everything.
「. . .」
The feeling of losing too much blood wasn't actually painful.
There wasn't even a sensation of pain anymore.
He was just tired, with no strength left in his body, feeling languid, as if nothing mattered anymore... He wanted to sleep, to rest, to end this damned life.
Closing his eyes, he felt ready to accept the reward that awaited him after this long torment—a long, undisturbed slumber.
Death was approaching.
After witnessing so much death, so many different kinds of death, Huai Shi realized he was finally facing his own end.
It wasn't dreadful, nor was it painful. There wasn't even any reluctance.
Just fatigue and bewilderment.
In a daze, he felt someone pushing his body, struggling to shove him forward with a stick, bit by bit, like a snail pushing a stone.
He was flipped over, lying on a torn carpet, and dragged somewhere.
He smelled burning, heard shattering, and hoarse moans, as if the entire world was being destroyed.
Droplets of water fell on Huai Shi's face.
There was the taste of blood.
He struggled to open his eyes and saw Liu DongLi beside him, her condition unknown, and ahead, an old man staggering and crawling, pulling at the carpet.
The figure with one lame leg pushed forward with all his might, forcing a door open, then looked back.
His face looked as if it were shattered; one half was unchanged, deathly pale like a corpse, while the other half spasmed violently, along with that side of his body.
It was as if half of him had already died, while the remaining half struggled desperately, beyond cure.
Seeing Huai Shi's vacant eyes, Old Yang avoided his gaze. With difficulty, he rolled up the carpet, wrapping both Huai Shi and Liu DongLi together, and painfully rolled them forward.
"I'm sorry… I must save her… Huai Shi, only I can save her now… I'm sorry…"
His hoarse whisper sounded like an apology, yet he didn't expect a response, just kept muttering to himself, "Sorry… sorry…"
A phone rang, the loudspeaker of a cheap phone cheerfully singing some love song, calling out "darling, darling" or something similar, but no one answered.
"Sorry..."
Blood fell on Huai Shi's face, carrying the warmth of tears.
He was pushed and shoved into the darkness behind the door, tumbling down a long staircase, falling into a cellar cluttered with junk and jars of pickles.
Amidst the violent rolling and falling, Huai Shi saw Old Yang's face for the last time.
He leaned against the doorframe, looking at the boy. His twitching mouth contorted into a clumsy angle, as if smiling. His hand, holding the still-vibrating phone, waved at him.
Just like saying goodbye.
Huai Shi opened his mouth, wanting to call out to him, but no sound came out.
The door closed.
In the darkness, the roar of an explosion came from afar. Terrifying flames and intense heat swept through the entire church, turning everything that remained into ashes.
Huai Shi closed his eyes.
Death embraced him.
「. . .」
"Someone... asked me... to bring a message to everyone…"
The rigid, stiff man was trapped in a chair, convulsing neurotically, goldfish swimming listlessly in his eyes.
"He said… he said… he said…"
His expression suddenly turned manic, revealing a ferocious smile.
"—Green Day will eventually illuminate the world."
BANG!
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Amidst the sudden gunfire, his head exploded. But the gunfire didn't stop. After one magazine was emptied, another was loaded, and the trigger continued to be pulled.
Until the thing on the chair turned into a bloody pulp.
A shattered goldfish leaped from the hollow skull, only to be pulverized by bullets into a stinking paste, which soon dehydrated into a pinch of powder.
"Did you catch him?"
Ai Qing indifferently tossed away her gun. She looked up at the middle-aged man's expression and, no longer hiding her displeasure, said, "Don't bother saying it. He got away, right? After we held out for so long, did we just get here in time to watch them sanitize the scene?"
"He had a Border Relic on him that could perform short-range jumps. We have already sealed off the area around Xinhai City…"
"What about the survivors?" Ai Qing cut him off, having lost interest.
"…We are searching for them."
"Then keep searching." Ai Qing withdrew her gaze. "Dig three feet into the ground if you must, until bodies are found."
No one objected.
When midnight arrived, news came from the rumbling, collapsed ruins of the excavated church, "Liu DongLi and Huai Shi have been found!"
Outside the ruins, Ai Qing sat in her wheelchair, her expression calm. "What's their status?"
"Liu DongLi is still alive, critically injured. As for Huai Shi…" The person reporting paused, his expression hesitant.
"We are attempting resuscitation."
The temporary resuscitation room was in chaos. Ai Qing waited quietly outside, listening to the noisy confusion within.
"Breathing? Is there any?"
"No, the pulse is almost gone too! Quickly, inject…"
"It's no use, his heartbeat is erratic, almost gone… Defibrillator! Get me the defibrillator!"
"One, two, three!"
BANG!
"One, two, three!"
BANG!
…
After a long time, silence fell within the room. The doctor in charge of resuscitation walked out, removed his mask, and said with regret, "Sorry, we were a step too late…"
Ai Qing nodded silently, letting them walk past her.
Soon, Ai Qing finally saw Huai Shi.
As if in a deep sleep, the teenager lay on the operating table. The bullet wound on his chest was pale; it had long since stopped bleeding.
His empty eyes stared at the overhead surgical light.
The last heartbeat ceased.
Ai Qing fell silent, lowering her eyes. Her hand gripping the armrest was deathly pale. After a long moment, she said calmly, "Then… proceed with the protocol."
She turned her wheelchair, intending to leave.
But then, the movement of the wheelchair abruptly stopped.
She seemed to have heard a sound.